Review: Charming Eclair Paris may have diners crying oui all the way home

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There is a reason restaurant critics do not deliver a verdict after a single visit. I was reminded of that principle as I considered reviewing Eclair Paris, a new French bakery-cafe on the edge of the Southgate neighborhood, near Rice University and the Medical Center.

My first visit discouraged me. I am always looking for the perfect French bakery-cafe to add to my gerbil trails, a place where I can grab a good coffee and a serious piece of Viennoiserie, those fragile pastries laminated by repeated foldings with butter and more butter. Or where I can lunch on a legitimate French onion soup; or perhaps grab a well-made sandwich or wedge of quiche.

It's a frustrating search in this city. The bakery-cafe I would love to call my own, Levure, is way, way up in The Woodlands, out of easy hangout reach. Common Bond, never really comfortably user-friendly in terms of parking and crowds and layout, is not what it once was. Other newcomers have left me crestfallen.

So I was disheartened by my first crack at Eclair Paris, even though it looked sweet with its red-woven bistro chairs and beckoning pastry case. The air conditioning was so cranked up that I shivered on my banquette. I ordered quiche Lorraine, an old favorite. Although the menu said the savory pie came with bacon, the engagingly trembly custard interior revealed a surfeit of sliced ham. Middling sliced ham of no particular distinction, I am sorry to say.

4 stars: superlative; can hold its own on a national stage. 3 stars: excellent; one of the best restaurants in the city. 2 stars: very good; one of the best restaurants of its kind. 1 star: a good restaurant that we recommend. No stars: restaurant cannot be recommended.

Curiously, the fat wedge was heated to scalding on its exterior, but it cooled so rapidly as I ate that I was left wondering why they didn't just go ahead and serve it at room temperature. I'm pretty sure it would have been fine that way, except for all those unwelcome shards of ham.

I consoled myself with a glass potful of masala chai brewed from a high-rent teabag and a decent little green salad in a light vinaigrette. I watched the French chef/baker/owner assembling some new sidewalk tables with the help of a friend. His Vietnamese wife came and went, overseeing the service.

I took home a croissant, a piece of cranberry-spangled Viennoiserie and a smoked salmon baguette sandwich. All three left me vaguely unsatisfied. The croissant was fat and buttery, but it stretched instead of shattered. The pastry sneaked chocolate in with the tart berries, for reasons which I could not comprehend.

The sandwich? It just fell flat, thanks to a so-so grade of smoked salmon and the lack of a spark. There was cream cheese and cucumber and arugula in the layered mix, but I longed for a shiver of dill or a sweet, sharp crunch of red onion to pique my interest.

Honestly, I wasn't going to go back for a second visit. But something about the placed tugged at me. I had liked the breakfast menu I viewed online, and the glass-fronted wine case had revealed a promising selection of French producers. I had friends who lived nearby, and it would make such a convenient place to meet.

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Thus it was I found myself sitting outside Eclair Paris on the first night of the rodeo, watching the setting sun tint the sky rose behind the live oaks on Sheridan. The weather was balmy. Cars streamed by, heading south toward NRG Stadium. "Amazing Grace" blared from the open window of a big SUV.

My friend and I were snacking on a serviceable cheese plate while we waited for the owner to return. He'd gone to make a deposit, and he had the only key to the wine cooler, where a bottle of affordable Châteauneuf-du-Pape lay in wait. Perhaps 20 minutes later, he returned, and the red wine - which turned out to be very nice - was poured, and a fine, light French onion soup delivered.

"I'd come here just for this soup," I thought to myself. We dined on a homey bouef bourguignon that was more of a thin stew than a deep, winey braise. It was likable stuff in its unassuming way, fleshed out with baby pearl onions, carrots, mushrooms and a small fleet of roasted fingerling potatoes as irresistible as salted peanuts. I would have been happier paying the $18 lunch tab for the dish than the $24 dinner price, but I was satisfied.

Same went for the grilled New York strip version of steak frites with maitre d'hotel butter, which seemed a bit dear at $32. The beef lacked a good, tight sear on its surface, but barring a bit of ropy cartilage or two, it did the job. If I lived in the neighborhood and wanted a pleasant supper that I didn't have to cook myself, together with a good bottle of wine, this could work for me.

So, in a much bigger way, could the marvelous apricot and plum tart, with its sablé-style cookie crust and its tart-sweet cargo of fruit and streusel. I love fruit desserts, and I consider this one of the best examples in the city right now. Like that French onion soup, I'd come here for that tart alone.

That's the kind of amenity Eclair Paris is: It's useful and oddly charming. There's a definite sidewalk-cafe culture springing up on the strip-mall sidewalk outside, in the shadow of an oh-so-Houston CVS sign. Lots of locals walk in, visitors to the nearby Secret Escape Nail Salon duck in for a coffee, and - during a memorable weekend brunch - a pink cockatoo named Hootie perched on a planter one table over, nibbling on ice cubes and a paper napkin fed to him by his indulgent humans.

He was the toast of the restaurant.

And, um, speaking of toast … there was avocado toast in a verdant, spring-green version, housed on baguette bread with a schmear of herbed cream cheese, made sublimely messy by a runny-yolked poached egg and anchored with arugula instead of the promised frisée. As with the bacon quiche, listed ingredients here seem to be more of a suggestion than a vow.

I really liked Eclair Paris' eggs Benedict version, fortified with lush roasted tomato slices and crisp bacon, even though the pale, subtle Hollandaise was less assertive than I generally prefer. Again, I found myself popping those crinkly-skinned roasted fingerlings like peanuts and exclaiming over the brisk, flinty quality of the Dauvissat Chablis we had ordered at the very fair price of $43.

I even approved of my friend's Swiss, onion and bacon omelet, which I found suitably fluffy rather than tough and overcooked, failings all too often encountered.

Sure, little details niggled. Water was delivered late in the game. We had to ask for butter and jam to go with the omelet's naked baguette slices. A cup of stout cappuccino collapsed to a scant half-cup once the foam was stirred in. But the scene and the food were fine, the very nice staff trying hard and excellent vanilla custard eclairs waiting inside to be toted home for later.

Sometimes, that's plenty. Especially when there's a pink cockatoo at the next table.